MODEL PHOTOGRAPHY 101

Any hack with a new camera can take a 'beautiful' picture as long as there's someone who looks like Helvethet in front of their camera, and this includes me. Photographing models is no test of your mettle as an artist. And it's also no test for a model involved in this shallow dynamic. The whole model photography 'thing' is driven by male sexual desire and fantasy. 

1. MOST model photographers are male. Like probably over 95%.

2. MOST of those male photographers - are single

3. NEARLY ALL of their subjects are females - of socially acceptable and sexually desirable dimensions. How many shoot male subjects for example?

These are plain statistics. What is the picture that those stats paint? Emotions aside and  academically, what is the picture for you? 

This sexual fantasy desire is the thing that drives the whole model photography 'industry'. Models of course capitalise on this and can make money from it. How many times has a female model offered YOU, the male photographer, money to take her picture? So really, how much is your skill worth in this 'industry'? I'll answer it for myself: my skill is worth zilch in this industry. Nothing at all. If it was, I'd be making money as a freelance photographer. I can't even find models who will work TFP with me, meaning this: I am only seen of 'value' in dollar terms, in other words - if I pay a model. 

Photographers generally think they're valued via some very shallow means; such as, if a model 'likes' their pictures on social media. They only do this because they see the photographer as a potential source of revenue. Before a model goes on tour to a particular place, they go through Instagram and 'like' all the pictures by photographers from that region. I'm not disclosing secrets here, it's common knowledge I know, but somehow we photographers are blinded by it  - maybe we're blinded by the promise of a fresh young nymph on our doorstep ready to disrobe - and what else matters? I used to be flattered by model 'likes', until I realised the truth. This is not always the case, but it's very safe to say that this is the norm.

Maybe all of this is OK. So what in other words. OK, maybe that's true but... if you value yourself and your work, it's worth stepping aside and at least thinking about these aspects for a time.

Think carefully and independently about who you are with your camera, your own identity as an artist, because it may not be what it seems.

It may sound like I'm fed up with the whole game. And that would be true.

These shots are unedited. Scanned by holding the negative up to the sky and taking a shot with the DSLR.